Predicting the 2025/26 Premier League

The position of favourites to win the Premier League has already changed hands this season. Which club looks likeliest to claim the crown?

Oct 17, 2025

What Liverpool 1-0 Arsenal told us about the two title rivals

The Premier League returns after the latest international break with roughly a fifth of the season complete. Liverpool were favourites with bookmakers to win the title when the season began. Not any more.

Arsenal are now rated as the likeliest champions next May. Their probability of success is almost seven percent more favourable than it was for the Reds before the season got underway. The Gunners were a 30.9% shot back in mid-August, meaning the top two collectively own an almost identical share of the pie as they did then, the slices have just tipped towards Mikel Arteta’s men.

This might seem odd considering Arsenal hold a solitary point advantage in the league table. You’ll find few stronger stat-heads than bookmakers, who also respond to the bets that are placed; the above isn’t an accurate prediction in the purest sense. Opta Analyst have the percentages at 44.1 to 30.8 in favour of the Gunners, so closer.

There will be further market movements. This is only the seventh season in the last 31 in which the leader after seven games had no more than 16 points. Omen alert: none of the last four such front runners didn’t just fail to win the league, they didn’t even finish second. In what is the strongest Premier League ever, nothing will be decided this far out.

A glance at the expected points table might make you wonder how Liverpool are second favourites. Getting fifteen points on the board early carries weight. While they were mostly secured with late winning goals, the Reds haven’t massively overachieved against their underlying performances.

The earlier in the season we are, the more the table lies. Even the one for the expected goal numbers. It takes no account of the difficulty of the fixtures played, nor if a team has played more at home or away. Whether you lean more on the xG standings or the Premier League table to determine this will depend on who you support.

The average expected points ranks of the teams Liverpool and Arsenal have faced are level on 8.4, with only Wolves (7.9) facing a tougher set of teams. However, running the same process for the actual table delivers numbers of 7.9 and 11.3 for the Reds and Gunners respectively.

The gap is wider still for home games - 4.3 vs 14.0 - with Arsenal having played an extra match in a quartet which includes hosting three of the bottom six. It is this imbalance which explains why they are top despite Liverpool’s points-per-game average against teams in the bottom half being just as good, better against the top 10.

For all the flaws the Reds have displayed, they have earned one point more than they took in the corresponding fixtures last term. The issue is that two of the respective matches in 2024/25 were dead rubbers, which leaves Liverpool two points down against their results in their competitive games. The greater concern is that the immediate chasing pack have been making up serious ground.

It is an interesting weekend for those minded to follow the corresponding fixtures as the top three in the above chart all have fixtures which were drawn last season. We can make predictions for every match using expected goal data for 2025/26, with Manchester City understandably the likeliest of the title chasers to claim three points.

Any such model carries flaws, especially early in a season. It doesn’t know how many players are out injured, who travelled across the globe on international duty, how past fixture difficulty (plus red cards and penalties) affected the numbers or which clubs have recently changed their managers (hi, West Ham). If we want to make a prediction for final point tallies, using the data for the last 38 match weeks provides a more robust estimate.

Liverpool supporters will be happy with this. It is their side which looks capable of far greater improvement than Arsenal based on the campaign to date. To have a narrow edge on the prediction with an uplift in performance potentially to come is heartening. What if we plot the same chart using data for 2025/26 alone?

This is much less encouraging for Kopites. It feels unlikely the Reds will go at under two points per game for the remainder of the campaign as suggested here when their remaining fixtures are easier as a group than the first seven were. This is the statistical corner into which their performances have painted them though.

Whatever their result on Sunday, the picture will shift for Liverpool just as it will for every club in the Premier League this weekend. Maybe the Reds will be favourites for the title again before we know it.

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